


What Was Lost Shall Be Found

by Marchling



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Matt's senses, Nuns, POV Foggy Nelson, mild body horror, post the defenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marchling/pseuds/Marchling
Summary: “A woman came to our Church a month ago,” The nun started. “She brought a man with her. A badly injured man.”Her words felt like a physical blow.Matty…---In the month after Matt's death, Foggy has been floating through life numb and miserable. Though he has the support of Karen and, surprisingly enough, his new friends Jessica, Luke and Danny, what he really wants is a second chance to make things right with Matt.What Foggy doesn't know is that there's a nun searching for him. A nun who has been caring for a blind man who screams his name.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 41
Kudos: 274





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story is COMPLETELY AU after The Defenders. It takes not one ounce of any of the seasons that come after into consideration. 
> 
> Also, please forgive any mischaracterization of Danny Rand. I didn't watch his show and am only going off what we saw of him in The Defenders. He doesn't pop up loads because of this, the story is truly about Matt and Foggy themselves, but he's there and hopefully I'm not making some glaring error.

* * *

**\-- Chapter One –-**

* * *

The nuns listened to the man they had been given thrash in his small room. The softest of his caretakers, Sister Cristina, winced as she heard the sounds within. He was going to pull stitches again, bloody himself up, hurt something that had only just begun to heal. He had been with them nearly a month and in that time he seemed to have barely healed from the severe injuries he had arrived with. What _could_ heal was replaced with fresh injuries that required tending that he barely let them give.

The others thought he was crazy. That he would eventually need to be given to an institution that could contain him. She disagreed but that disagreement came from her heart, not her head and so she kept it mostly to herself.

She argued progress had been made.

That was mostly untrue.

Their patient hadn’t truly improved since had woken up. Even that was a mixed blessing. Perhaps if he had slept longer he could have healed more. Certainly there had been little rest in him since his eyes first fluttered open.

Sister Cristina felt, however, that he had made other small measures of progress. The worst wound that they had stitched shut had healed enough that he could no longer open it with his thrashing. His screams hadn’t reached that same level of wild desperation since they had decided that tying him down to the bed wasn’t worth the stress he put his body under in response.

He had, as of last week, started speaking.

The words weren’t coherent and weren’t in response to anything they said, but she thought they were gaining enough insights to try to find who he belonged to.

He mostly screamed things like ‘Stop!’ and ‘Please!’, which weren’t particularly helpful. He also occasionally said something about electricity, which sent her running to figure out all that she could about healing someone who had been tortured in such a manner.

Recently, however, he had added a strange word to his limited vocabulary: Foggy. At first she thought he meant he felt it, either literally or figuratively. He certainly didn’t see it, which led her to abandoning her research into area that had experienced heavy fogs recently almost immediately after she had begun it.

The more she listened to him, though, the less Foggy seemed a word and the more it seemed to be a _name_.

What sort of name, she couldn’t say. Nothing normal, but then their patient was obviously not normal. He hadn’t been from the moment they had set eyes on him dumped on the steps of the church. Their Reverend Mother had been the one to find him and the only one to see the woman who had left him there. The woman, she said, was dark and dirty. She seemed abnormal and wrong. She had told them to keep him safe, to keep him hidden.

It was implied, the Reverend Mother said, that the woman would return.

She had not returned.

Now they were left with a young man who alternated between periods of disassociated silence where he reacted to no one and nothing, periods of screaming and thrashing where he could not be reasoned with or approached, and painfully brief periods of sleep which were probably closer to unconsciousness.

He could not continue as he was.

They had tried everything within their power _to_ try. The only thing left that had a chance of helping him, she was sure, was finding out who he was. If he had family then maybe they could shake him out of his delirium.

Sister Maria, more sympathetic to him than many of the others but less than Cristina was, shifted sadly next to her, “He jammed his elbow into the wall this morning. The bruise is already spectacular.”

She sighed and glanced through the window in the door, “The same side as the shoulder he pulled Monday?”

“I think so,” Maria answered. Her face was grim. “The Reverend Mother has been looking into other places for him.”

Cristina knew that. Never in all her years had she seen a case such as his. Officially, they had been calling him Amabilis, named for the patron saint of demonic possession. For all that the name was strange and didn’t seem to fit him, it seemed like a touch of help that he could use.

“Has he said anything new this morning?” She asked. She preferred to be the one with him when he screamed because she was the only one truly paying attention to his words as clues. Maria was a distant second.

“That word you insist is a name, Foggy.” Sister Maria report skeptically, “A few times. I thought he was speaking about a stick earlier but I cannot be sure. He ate a little, however, which is excellent.”

It _was_ excellent. He was moving steadily past gaunt and into a truly alarming state. Getting food into him was easier when he was in his frozen state, because at least then he could be encouraged to swallow.

It was both excellent and not enough. She needed to find who he belonged to before he was sent away and locked in some room pumped full of drugs and his identity was truly lost.

She was running out of time.

**\---**

Foggy stood at his office window and looked out over the city. There was still so much clean-up to do. Hell’s Kitchen had finally started seeing real progress after the Battle of New York and then Fisk had started blowing things up and then the tremors and then the explosion…

He stopped the thought in its tracks. Took a deep breath, held it and let it out.

He was at work. If he kept going then he was never going to get anything done.

It had been nearly a month after everything that had happened and it still felt like the moment Foggy realized that M-…

_Stop._

Foggy ran a tired hand down his face and stepped back from the window. His hand, sort of shaking, reached out to pull his blinds shut. “Get it together, Nelson.” He whispered to himself.

He went back to his desk and stared a little helplessly at the case files littering the surface.

Why did it all feel so hollow?

His ringing cell was a welcome distraction. Or it was until he saw the name on the screen: _Karen_. He flushed guiltily and swiped the screen to answer her, “Hey Karen!” He said as cheerfully as he could muster.

“Hi Foggy,” She answered. Her voice sounded a little less bright and fake than his but the notes of it were still there. He wondered if they could ever really stay friends in this post-Hand world, knowing what they had lost.

“How are you?” He asked sincerely.

She sighed a little tremulously, “Oh, you know. Busy. Bored. Tired of the power going in and out still.”

Restoration was annoying sometimes, “I hear you. I really do.” He laughed. It felt more genuine.

Karen laughed too, “And Jessica was over last night, so of course I’m a little hungover too. I don’t think I know how to hang out with her for more than ten minutes and not end up drunk.”

“And again, I really really hear you.” Foggy said, because it was so true.

He was still maybe a little surprised at how things had finished with the other three vigilantes. Or rather, how they _hadn’t_ finished. All three of them came around periodically. There were reports of vigilante justice in Hell’s Kitchen again, there was Jessica on his couch when he got home after a bad day silently offering him a bottle, there was Luke finding him in bars and keeping him from giving himself grief-induced alcohol poisoning and there was Danny in the seat beside him knowing when to make him laugh and when to sit silently. He knew they did the same with Karen.

He knew what Matt had said to Danny on their way out. To protect his city. He figured they would show up if another Fisk threatened Hell’s Kitchen but he never thought they would honor Matt’s request in the ways they had.

He was grateful to be a part of the strange new extended family that they had become. He was sad Matt wasn’t around to see it or to be a part of it, except that he was so completely part of it.

“Foggy?”

Karen’s voice shook him out of his thoughts. “Sorry, Karen. Got distracted by an email that just came in.”

Lie. His screen had gone black he hadn’t done anything on it in so long.

“That’s okay,” Karen said gently. They were getting good at knowing when to let lies stand. “I was just asking if you were coming this weekend?”

The one month anniversary.

Jessica insisted they get drunk together. Danny had rented out a Chinese restaurant – a different one; he, Luke and Jessica had lifetime bans to the one that the four of them had holed up in – and they were all supposed to go and raise a glass to Matt’s memory or some bullshit like that.

He sighed.

Karen cut him off before he could even figure out how to say no.“Foggy, please. I really think you should come.” She said.

Foggy leaned back in his chair and tilted his head to stare at the ceiling, “It feels wrong.”

“Why?” Karen asked.

He didn’t know why, which was another lie because he knew exactly why.

It was Karen’s turn to sigh and it nearly made Foggy laugh. There was a lot of sighing and pain-filled pauses going around. “I understand.” She said, “It feels weird to even have to… do it. We didn’t do a funeral, obviously, and I keep waiting for…”

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed wearily.

Karen hesitated, “Maybe that will make it feel more real, you know? If we really talk about it. About Matt.”

“Raise glasses to his wounded duck face and unfairly nice butt and complete and total stubbornness? I don’t know if that’s going to make me feel better, Karen.” Foggy said with a bitter laugh.

“I want to,” She said quietly, “I want to talk about him. With them, so they know him better. The Matt part and not just Daredevil. With you, so he’s not some minefield we step over forever.”

Foggy reached over to his laptop and prodded it awake. He opened his calendar and saw the dinner meeting he was going to have to reschedule. He had a secretary for that kind of thing. Or an admin that he shared or whatever. Running the vigilante portion of the firm was a growing division with perks he still didn’t know how to use. And how to explain the need to reschedule?

“I’ll come.” He said finally. “I don’t know how much I can… but I’ll come, Karen.”

She let out a relieved breath, “I’m glad, Foggy. I really am.”

“If Danny starts talking about his chi I reserve the right to pour duck sauce on him.” He half-joked, just to end things on a lighter note.

It worked and made Karen laugh a real sort of laugh that he had thought they were barely capable of anymore.

Some things, apparently, he still knew how to do in this strange bleak world he was stuck in.

**\---**

Sister Cristina wished high speed internet connections were something their Church offered. Medical services, yes. An after school program for children with working parents, yes. Confession, yes. Computers made in the last ten years, no.

So instead she had gone to the library. It had taken a few days before she had gotten a chance to go, especially considering their patient’s condition. It was time to start researching his identity. Of course all of them had kept a close eye on the news and in the newspapers to see if anyone matching Amabilis’ description was reported missing. The timing of his arrival was not lost on any of them. Was he an innocent man caught in the crossfire or did he have something to do with what happened during the tremors and explosions?

She had spent so much time trying to research how to heal the obvious torture he had gone through that she had spent little of it on figuring out who he was. Though it shamed her to even think it, the blindness could be a blessing in her search.

That he was a resident of New York was also something she had to pray for. She let her fingers dance over the keys in her little corner of the library as she thought through her first round of search terms.

_Blind man, New York_

Too vague. She discarded it before she even saw the number of returns. Should she go by borough? Was Google even the right choice? Did the police have a missing persons database that she could access? Was that even safe? What if she found him on it and the act of looking at his profile alerted the people who had done whatever they had done to him?

She hesitated and glanced around. She was alone and truly out of her depth.

 _You are not a detective,_ she scolded herself mentally.

_But you are also the only chance he has._

She nodded to herself with determination and set her fingers back down over the keys.

**\---**

_Matthew Murdock_

She hadn’t gotten any hits until she paired blind and Hell’s Kitchen. It was luck that she even thought to do so, just a memory of the epicenter of the tremors. She hadn’t expected anything more than she had gotten sifting through the results for Midtown or any other neighborhood.

Instead she got a new story that was fairly old but seemed to be a big part of local folklore for Hell’s Kitchen. A young boy, blinded trying to save an older man. A boxer’s son. A boxer’s orphan. A lawyer. Nelson & Murdock. As she went deeper through the links, she was more and more desperate for a recent picture.

The sun had started to set and she knew she had to return soon. For one thing, she hated to leave him so long. Though Sister Maria had occasional success in convincing him to eat she was the best at it so far. He ate so little, rested so little, that every opportunity lost and every failed attempt truly made a difference.

She was ready to give up for the day but something in her was desperate. Just one more click, one more page…

A picture.

Two smiling men, standing in front of a court house. Some case they had won, she barely read the article.

She knew that face.

Younger and less troubled. Eyes covered by glasses. Still, she knew that face.

The half-crazed young man in her care was Matthew Murdock.

Who was the other man then?

She read the caption and was disappointed to find it was only the name of his law partner. Franklin Nelson. She already knew his name, what she was praying for was to see _Foggy._

Franklin, though, was an uncommon and formal sort of name nowadays she mused. Ripe for a nickname…

Her fingers moved over the keys, more confident than she had been hours ago.

She found credentials, his current practice, and a few private profiles. Then, finally, a picture on someone else’s page, not set to private. This time, the caption or tag or whatever it was called, listed _Foggy Nelson_.

It _was_ a name!

She smiled. It was a name and she knew exactly how to find him.

**\---**

Nobody was talking about Matt yet.

No one was drunk enough (except maybe Jessica), for starters. They had only just sat down in the otherwise empty restaurant. Everyone was laughing, more at ease with each other than they had been in the beginning. Since the party was sort of a memorial for Matt, the group was a little smaller.

Foggy sat next to Karen by her own demand. He figured that was a lot of concentrated blubbering in one section of table but he was powerless to deny her. Next to him was Jessica, then Danny, then Luke, then Claire until they swung back around to Karen. He was glad there were less people, even if he and Trish were getting to be pretty tight even without Jessica around. If they were definitely going to be talking about Matt then the less people who saw Foggy tear up the better.

He sort of thought he was being set-up. Grief intervention or something. If they were going to talk about Matt then who was going to do it? Jessica, Danny and Luke had known him about three days. Claire and Karen for less about a year. It was going to fall on Foggy.

He pulled his suit jacket off and draped it on the back of his chair. He was a little overdressed for the occasion. Jessica was still in jeans and a leather jacket and Luke wasn’t much better.

“The pork was better at the last place,” Jessica said while she shoveled a dumpling in her mouth.

“I don’t know about that,” Danny hedged. “This is pretty good. And these people don’t hate us, so that always makes food taste better.”

“The owner didn’t hate us until Jessica threw a van through the window.” Luke countered.

Foggy laughed, the first positive noise that had come from him all evening. “You didn’t!”

Jessica raised her eyebrow at him, “What in my personality makes you think throwing a van through a window is outside the realm of possibility?”

Foggy tilted his head to the side, considering. Luke and Danny snickered. “Okay,” He said slowly, “When you put it like that…”

“If it’s violent and impulsive, then it’s Jessica.” Karen laughed.

_“Excuse me, Ma’am, this is a private party and I really must insist…”_

_“I need to speak to Foggy Nelson. His secretary said he would be here.”_

Foggy’s attention was caught by the woman at the front door. His eyes widened when he realized that there was a _nun_ asking to speak with him.

“Do you know her, Foggy?” Karen whispered.

He realized that everyone’s attention had been caught by one of the servers arguing with the nun. He stood up, “No.”

Foggy heard Jessica whisper to Danny, “Wasn’t he Catholic? Did anyone invite a nun?”

The reminder of Matt’s intense Catholic-ness chastised any thought Foggy had of letting the man at the door shoo her away. “It’s all right, I can speak with her.” He called.

The second she was given permission, the nun rushed to stand in front of him.

“You’re Franklin Nelson?” She asked a little breathlessly.

Foggy eyed her carefully. He was a little thrown by her nun-uniform or whatever they called it. A habit? Something. He tried to place at least her face but he was pretty sure he didn’t know her. He didn’t even have any churches as clients either.

“I am,” He answered slowly. He heard Luke stand up behind him and Foggy wasn’t sure whose protection that was for. Foggy vs. Nun wasn’t exactly the makings of an epic smackdown. Maybe Luke just wanted to be supportive.

“You go by Foggy though, don’t you?” She pressed. “That’s what your friends call you?”

He had never been so intensely questioned about his admittedly odd nickname. “Yes, my friends and family call me Foggy.”

She glanced around her, as if noticing people other than Foggy were in the room too. “Could I take a moment of your time, Foggy?”

“This is kind of a bad time, Sister. I’m pretty sure he’s got office hours or something.” Jessica piped up from the back.

The nun looked a bit surprised at being told no. “Oh, I don’t need legal help…”

“Then what can I help you with? You can trust these people, they’re friends.” Foggy said with more tact than Jessica. Mostly he wasn’t sure he could live with the curiosity until Monday.

She hesitated again, “Are you… do you have… Do you have a blind friend?”

The reaction was instantaneous. Jessica and Danny stood, Claire swore under her breath and Karen gasped. Foggy himself stood frozen.

“I did.” He answered and it felt like something was ripping open wider in his chest to have to use the past tense.

“Where do you get off, lady?” Jessica demanded at the same time. Her voice drowned out his but the nun stared at him so intently that he knew she had heard.

“A woman came to our Church a month ago,” The nun started. “She brought a man with her. A badly injured man.”

Her words felt like a physical blow.

_Matty…_

Foggy stumbled back and felt Luke’s hand steady him. “What are you saying?”

“It’s taken me some time to determine his identity. I didn’t have much to go on, he hasn’t… _spoken_ much and even if we found someone, we weren’t sure if he would be safe. But he says your name, sometimes. Screams it, really. I didn’t figure out Foggy was a name for a long time.” She said, almost rambling. She wrung her hands while she spoke as if even she realized the magnitude of the bomb she was dropping on Foggy. She exhaled sharply, “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to find you, Foggy, and that I’ve interrupted your party. But if he’s your friend then could you please come with me?”

A cell phone shoved its way through the wall of bodies that Foggy realized had come to surround them. Karen forced her way forward from between Danny and Luke. “This man? This is the man you have?”

The nun peered at the picture, “Yes, that’s him. I found a picture of him and Mr. Nelson online too.”

“What do you mean, _screaming_ Foggy’s name?” Claire asked.

The nun – Foggy really needed to get her name – sighed, “As I said, he came to us badly injured. We weren’t even sure he would live. He didn’t wake for a long time. And when he did, he, well, he’s not been himself.”

“How would you know?” Jessica demanded.

The nun looked at her with pity. When she looked back at Foggy, the pity increased tenfold. “It would be better if you came. You’ll see.”

“We’ll all come.” Karen said instantly.

Foggy nodded sort of dumbly as the others agreed with her. He barely paid any attention as Danny got on the phone to get them a car or Claire nudged him into his jacket.

He shouldn’t trust this woman so quickly. It could be a trap or a guy who looked like Matt or…

_Matty’s alive._

His heart thudded as the hope settled into him.

_Matt’s alive, he has to be._

_Please, please let it be him. Let him be alive._

_Let me have him back._


	2. Chapter Two

* * *

**\-- Chapter Two --**

* * *

Each step that Foggy took closer to where Sister Cristina said Matt was, he felt the pressure inside of him build up. He almost felt like he might explode at the sight of his best friend. Or the sight of some other guy laid up in a church’s “medical ward” or whatever she was calling it. He wasn’t sure how it worked. He wasn’t sure it was entirely legal. He did not care in the slightest.

He heard the whispers and footsteps behind him and tried to take strength from the way that Karen squeezed his hand.

It wasn’t enough. He was terrified.

He almost felt like he was dreaming.

Sister Cristina put on a little speed at the end and peeked into a small window on a door. “Oh, he’s quiet now, that’s good.” She said.

“This mystery act is getting old.” Jessica said loudly.

The nun turned to look at all of them, “I apologize. I’m not trying to be cryptic. It’s just hard to explain. We don’t know what’s wrong with him, other than the obvious.”

“Start with what you mean by ‘quiet’ or ‘screaming’ and why Matt couldn’t tell you how to get in contact with Foggy himself.” Claire questioned.

“Yeah, not right now.” Foggy said quickly to cut them off, “You guys talk that out. I’m going in.”

“Perhaps I should explain before you see…” Sister Cristina protested.

Foggy pushed her hand away from the doorknob as politely as he could, which was to say, not very. He stepped around her to open the door and looked inside with his heart in his throat.

_Please, please, please..._

His eyes latched onto the figure on the ground and all the air rushed from his lungs in a disbelieving breath.

_Oh my god, Matt…_

“Is it him?” Karen asked from back in the hall, “Foggy, is it him?”

He stared at the man laying on the floor not four feet from Foggy. There was a small bed and a nightstand with a basin on it but somehow Matt was on the floor. He had on only pants, giving Foggy the full view of his bruises and his ribs and the scars that he knew and the scars that he didn’t. Fresh ones, angry ones. How could he still look so battered?

Matt didn’t turn his head to acknowledge Foggy was even in the room. His eyes were open but his laid still on the ground. Foggy felt like he was walking in a dream. Maybe he had never dreamt this specific room or Matt looking this exact way but he’d had this dream so many times. Nearly every night since that first awful one.

“Foggy, is it Matt?” Karen asked again, her voice going a little shrill.

Slowly, Foggy nodded, and he stepped further into the room.

“Matty?” He called softly with a voice so tight he wasn’t sure the word would even croak its way out. There was no reaction from Matt. Tears started filling his eyes and he blinked them away, afraid that if he didn’t keep looking at Matt he would just disappear.

He stood right next to his best friend’s prone body. He sank down onto his knees and knelt by Matt’s side. “Matt? Matt, it’s me. It’s Foggy.”

There was no reaction.

He gently reached out and touched Matt’s hand. It was warm and the contact, the solid proof that Matt Murdock was alive and real, made Foggy sob softly. “Matty?” He tried again.

Foggy felt a stab of fear. Could Matt not hear him? He held Matt’s hand and brought it up to his face. Matt’s fingers didn’t move. He didn’t put any effort into holding his own arm up. Foggy pressed Matt’s palm to his mouth and said his name again.

There was no reaction. It wasn’t even Matt not understanding, it was Matt taking no information in.

_This is a sick joke. He’s alive but you can’t have him? He’s alive but he’s still gone?_

Foggy turned back to the door. Sister Cristina stood there, holding the others back from entering.

“What’s wrong with him?” He almost shouted.

“He goes through periods of this and periods where he screams and thrashes and won’t let anyone near him. Neither of them are really coherent. It’s why we didn’t know anything about him in the start.” She explained. That she didn’t know why it was happening was obvious.

“Let me see him. I’m a nurse. Like an actual trained one.” Claire’s voice sounded from behind the door. She pushed it open and Foggy saw her stop dead to take in the same injuries and weight loss that he had. “Oh, Matt.” She breathed out.

She hurried across the small room to kneel down at Matt’s other side. Her hands hovered over his skin like she wasn’t sure where to turn her attention first.

“He – he told me something like this happened once before. Where he couldn’t hear anything because of a head injury. But he could still feel and he could still smell and taste.” Foggy explained haltingly. “It wasn’t like this.”

Claire didn’t answer. She moved her hands over Matt gently, pressing on some spots or lifting up bandages in others. She was taking stock of what they were working with in a way far more practical than Foggy was capable of. He was left to hold Matt’s hand and try to will him back into reality.

There was shuffling behind them. Foggy could hear their reactions. He tuned them out, even Karen.

He felt his own breathing go a little shaky as he watched Claire look Matt over. What was this? Why was he so still?

Before he even fully thought through what he was contemplating – _Elektra –_ he pressed his hand down on Matt’s chest and felt the steady thumping of his heart. He sighed shakily and folded himself down so his forehead could press against Matt’s.

“He didn’t die.” He spoke into Matt’s mussed hair. “He’s not wrong like Elektra. He didn’t die. His heart is beating.”

“That was one of my first thoughts,” Claire admitted. She pulled back a fluffy white bandage that was wrapped around Matt’s elbow and hissed. “Wow.”

Foggy straightened up to look at what she had uncovered. Matt’s elbow was swollen and almost blackened it was so bruised.

Claire looked back up at the nun, her face harsh in anger. “You’re telling me he did this to himself?”

“I am,” Sister Cristina said steadily, “I told you, he thrashes and fights. I know how he is right now makes it seem like that couldn’t be possible, but that will change.”

“He fights you but you get him to eat then too?” Luke asked from his position leaning on the far wall with Karen in his arms. Foggy felt bad, he should be helping her deal, but he couldn’t step away from Matt for anything in the world and if Karen needed a few minutes to breathe before she could step closer then there weren’t many better places to do it than pressed against Luke Cage’s ample bosom.

Sister Cristina sort of bristled, “No, not much. Mostly we feed him when he’s like this.”

“IV lines? Anything?” Claire asked.

“No, he pulls them out.”

Claire swore under her breath, “Have you tried restraining him? Giving he some sort of medication to calm him down?”

“He didn’t respond well to being restrained and we don’t have access to the kinds of drugs you’re talking about. I’m glad we don’t. How could we have found you if we kept him so drugged up that he couldn’t speak?” She countered. Foggy tried to understand her point of view. She didn’t know anything about Matt. He wouldn’t want to be drugged. All he could think, though, was that Matt could have been found sooner if they had just taken him to the hospital that he had probably desperately needed. He wouldn’t have been so, so… _skeletal_ , if he was getting an IV or a feeding tube or something. They could have figured something out, if he had been with them.

There were probably no right answers.

Foggy turned away from the older woman. Matt blinked occasionally but that was it. He rubbed his hand over Matt’s arm and leaned back in. “Buddy, it’s Foggy. Please, you’re safe now. I’m here and Karen and Claire and Luke and Danny and Jessica. We’re all going to get you out of here.”

No reaction.

Time started moving strangely. Foggy’s whole focus was talking to Matt. He was barely aware of the questions that the others were asking Sister Cristina or the way that Claire and Danny had stepped away to have some sort of whispered huddle. Karen came and knelt in the spot that Claire left and she gently grasped Matt’s free hand while tears streamed out of her eyes. She didn’t speak but that was okay because Foggy was talking enough for all three of them.

Foggy was so focused on Matt that he was almost shocked when Matt’s hand jerked out of his with no warning.

“Matt?” Foggy asked, too startled to be hopeful.

Matt’s bare feet scrambled against the floor and the blank expression on his face gave way to something lost and hurt. His arms shook as he pushed himself up and back until he was pressed against the wall and two feet away from Foggy and Karen. “No, no, no, no…” Matt grunted, quietly at first and then building to a near-shout.

“Whoa, Matty, it’s okay, it’s Foggy.” Foggy said. He held his hands out in front of him palms out, not sure if Matt could sense the placating gesture or if he even understood it. Matt didn’t stop shouting _no_ and he didn’t acknowledge Foggy in the slightest.

Matt’s harsh breathing sounded ragged to Foggy’s ear. He glanced back at Claire and saw her moving forward. “Keep talking to him.” She said quietly.

Foggy turned back to Matt. Talking to Matt was easy, he didn’t understand why they had forgotten how to for so long. “Matt, you’re okay. Well, you’re going to be. We’re going to go home, okay?” He spoke quietly. Behind him, the others were all silent.

Matt let out a sound that defied label. It made Foggy’s heart ache.

“M-Matty, can you hear me?” Foggy asked, his voice catching on a sob. “I know you’re probably freaked out but I’m here now and I’m not gonna let anyone take you away again.”

Claire crept forward. Foggy wasn’t sure what her goal was. Taking Matt’s pulse when he was in his weird alternate-mode? He figured Matt’s heart was pounding, he didn’t need to take his pulse to know it.

“They need like two hours.” Danny whispered behind them.

“What?” Karen asked.

“I’ve got some people going to his apartment to set it up.” Danny answered. “We’re going to have to buy a new lock for the door because I pretty much just told them to break in since we don’t have time to bring keys.”

Foggy had never been more grateful that he had paid Matt’s rent last month. “Matty, we’re going home.” He said.

Claire crept even closer but before she could even touch Matt he lashed out with one leg, nearly kicking her right in the face. He let out a guttural scream and once the sound escaped him he kept just outright screaming. One of his hands reached up to grip at his own ear and Foggy was half worried Matt would rip it right off.

“Jesus.” He heard Luke whisper.

Foggy stared at Matt, horrified by the state his best friend was in. How could he even help through something like this if Matt didn’t even acknowledge him? If Matt didn’t let them get close to him? Foggy saw Claire start to move closer again and he held his hand out to stop her this time. If anyone was going to give Matt a hug, it was going to be him.

Matt’s screaming grew guttural, his voice sounded utterly shredded. He could hear Jessica say something to one of the others and saw Matt’s other hand grip his free ear.

“Foggy, Foggy, Foggy…” Matt yelled and Foggy flinched.

Matt’s wrecked voice twisted his name around until it hardly sounded like a word. Foggy could see why the nuns couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

If Matt wanted him, if Matt was calling for him, then maybe he would recognize Foggy and let him closer.

Carefully, pushed his arms back so he could slide across the floor. No slow crawl like Claire, just Foggy sitting. If Matt was sensing him, then Foggy was sitting as non-threatening as he had been before, just a little closer. Maybe, if Matt wasn’t really sure who they were, that they were friends, then he thought Claire’s crawling was like a goblin or some other creepy thing. Maybe the nuns were jailers with overly touchy hands.

But Foggy was family. Matt had told him that he could pick Foggy’s heartbeat out in a crowd. He had been with Matt longer than anyone else in his life. He _knew_ Foggy. He was _screaming_ for Foggy.

All Foggy had to do was get through whatever hell Matt was in long enough to get him to recognize him.

“Matt, I’m here.” Foggy said so quietly that he was practically just mouthing the words. “Matty, I’m right here.”

Matt didn’t stop screaming. There was no magic moment of understanding.

The others gave them room and Foggy appreciated it. Not even Karen stepped forward. Their voices were low murmurs, barely audible over Matt’s cries.

Foggy slid forward just another few inches. He was within touching range to Matt but he didn’t reach out yet. Again, he mouthed, “It’s Foggy, buddy. I won’t hurt you. You know I won’t hurt you.” He ignored the fact that he _had_ hurt Matt. That Matt had hurt him. None of that mattered anymore. Nothing like death to change a guy’s perspective.

Finally, just as a test, Foggy reached out to the closest bit of Matt – his bare foot – and ran his finger over Matt’s ankle so lightly Foggy could barely feel it. Matt could, though, and flinched so violently he lost his death grip on his left ear and his screams ramped up even louder. He gripped his ear again, hiding the abused red flush of his skin beneath his white knuckle grip.

Foggy reached out to bridge the gap Matt pulling away had made and did it again.

This time Matt’s yells didn’t change. His death grip on his ear didn’t let up, he flinched but he didn’t yank his foot out further of Foggy’s range.

“It’s just me. I’m Foggy and you’re Matt and we’re okay.” Foggy whispered.

“He can’t hear you, Foggy.” Karen said. She was behind Claire, but closer to him than the others. In sight enough to see his lips moving.

In his periphery he could see Claire shake her head ever so slightly. “I think he can.” She said slowly.

A lightbulb went off for Foggy. “Everyone out. Even in the hall, whisper.” He ordered in as low of a tone as he could.

To their credit, they didn’t argue. Even Claire got up and moved away. The door closed behind them and Foggy pleaded with whoever was listening that he wasn’t imagining Matt’s yelling coming down from the near-hysterical edge.

“Matt, please.” Foggy mouthed. “Just breathe, it’s just us.”

He made his last little shuffle forward. Now, their legs were pressed together like it was just another night studying or researching a case. Tentatively Foggy reached out a hand. Matt cowered against the wall and Foggy ached to pull Matt into his arms and make him feel better. He settled for dragging another barely there touch down the back of Matt’s hand. “Matt, I’m here.”

Matt stopped screaming slowly. He didn’t speak and he didn’t smile. He just grit his teeth and trembled. His breathing was so harsh Foggy’s own lungs hurt in sympathy.

“Matt, are you listening? I’m here. I found you.” Foggy said.

He traced an ‘F’ on Matt’s hand and waited another few seconds before he shifted to Matt’s side so they were both leaning against the wall. Matt didn’t move away, but he didn’t uncurl either.

“Foggy… Foggy…” Matt groaned.

The tears that had been ever present in his eyes welled over and not just in sadness because Matt was hurting. He hated that, but these were happy tears, kind of. 

His name had sounded so much more coherent.

He knew deep down into his gut that Matt was saying his name because he finally understood that Foggy was with him. “What’s wrong, buddy? Tell me how to help.” Foggy whispered. 

Matt didn’t answer verbally. At least he didn’t scream. Foggy gave him a few minutes of silence, just in case he needed a chance to think through his answer. If he was as out of it as he seemed, then he wasn’t going to be quoting Marshall at Foggy for a long time.

Out of nowhere Matt flinched violently again even though Foggy couldn’t see (or hear or feel or smell) that anything happened. He shouted through his gritted teeth and doubled over so far his forehead pressed against Foggy’s knee.

_Foggy_ might not have noticed anything but he was sure that there was some car that backfired three streets away. Or maybe a couple was fighting or a baby cried or a door slammed. He was sure Matt had heard _something_.

Never before had he seen Matt so unable to endure his enhanced senses. He wouldn’t have been able to hide them for so long if this sort of thing happened to him. The longest Foggy could remember, if he reframed his memories of Matt’s migraines, was one awful one in law school where Matt had literally cried. Foggy remembered sliding in bed with Matt and letting his friend press against him to drown out the world.

Foggy froze. _Maybe…_

It seemed like such a long shot.

Slowly, he pulled Matt up from his slouch against Foggy’s knee. His arms wrapped around Matt and he pulled the other man around until he was sitting sideways between Foggy’s stretched out legs. “I’m going to make it better, Matty. Let me try. Please, let me try.”

Matt did, either because he understood or he was getting too weak to fight. His hands were still clenched around his ears but he let Foggy move him. Once Matt was sitting pressed against his chest, he pulled his head down so Matt’s covered ear was against his heart.

“That’s what helped before, wasn’t it? You know my heartbeat. Listen, Matt.” Foggy whispered.

He was sure his heartbeat was pounding in terror. Maybe it would even be too loud for Matt.

Matt gasped and pulled the hand between his ear and Foggy’s chest away. He tangled it up in the fabric of Foggy’s suit jacket instead, knuckles still white with his grip.

“I’m here, Matt. You’re okay.” Foggy whispered.

“Hurts,” Matt mumbled. “Foggy, _hurts_.”

“Why?” He asked, hoping Matt was coherent enough to point them in the right direction.

Matt shuddered in his arms, “Too much.” He said after a minute.

Too much? As in, more than usual? He remembered what Danny had said about what The Hand was trying to do down in that mystical cave of bullshit. What if Elektra had used some of those bones to keep Matt alive? If she had been enhanced when she had been brought back, what if she had given Matt some sort of half-whammy with them?

Foggy didn’t understand enough of what The Hand was trying to do with “the substance” to be sure. He wasn’t sure any of them did.

But if he was right, if Matt had somehow been enhanced by the bone dust or whatever…

Foggy couldn’t imagine what Matt’s senses were like even on a regular day. But if he had been hurt badly, was out of it in pain, dealing with grief and amplified without warning then what they were dealing with now was possible. Hell, it was probable.

“Okay, Matty, we’re going to figure it out.” Foggy promised.

**\---**

Foggy wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he had pressed Matt’s ear to his chest to try to drown out the rest of the world with his heartbeat. He had even – gently – pressed his palm to Matt’s other ear to further drown out noise after Matt had finally let it go to sort of fall into a light, fitful doze. He was just glad Matt was getting some actual sleep. Now that he had a sort of working hypothesis about what was wrong, he could guess that the periods of time when Matt just laid completely shut off was literally just that – exhausted overload, a total shutdown. That wasn’t sleep, that was just Matt’s brain being unable to take anything else in and locking him down in response. It wasn’t the rest that Matt desperately needed.

Virtually Matt’s entire body was torn or bruised or scraped in some way. Wounds on top of wounds, all in different stages of healing. He needed to lie still, he needed to sleep. He also, Foggy winced as he ran his free hand down Matt’s side and got to enjoy tracing his ribs, really needed to eat. A shower would also help. He pretty much needed everything, immediately and desperately.

The door cracked open and Foggy braced himself for Matt’s probably violent wake up. Matt flinched in his arms and Foggy held his head down tighter, “Shh, shh, sleep Matty.” He mouthed.

Luke slowly slid in the door and shut it gently. He walked towards them slowly and Foggy was struck by the sight of his feet only in socks. Clearly, they had come around to the same sort of conclusions as Foggy, or at least about noise.

Luke crouched down, “Okay?” He whispered as quietly as he could. 

“He’s asleep,” Foggy answered. “I think Elektra used some of those bones to keep him alive and it cranked his senses up way beyond what he can handle.”

“That’s what we thought too,” Luke nodded, “He say anything?”

“It’s hurting him. He said it’s too much.” Foggy answered. It wasn’t anything they couldn’t guess themselves but it was nice that Matt had said anything coherent at all. Judging by Luke’s sad smile, Foggy could tell he agreed. “He keeps track of heartbeats, knows mine. He used it a few times when he’s had migraines that I think were low-level sensory overloads to try and drown everything out.” He added to explain their weird little cuddle.

Luke’s eyes widened just a little, Foggy wasn’t sure what part of it had garnered the reaction. The other man just shook his head, “Danny’s got us a van downstairs. His guys are finishing up at Matt’s place. Danny’s getting some drugs that Claire suggested too. Stuff she said Matt wouldn’t take because he said they would dull his senses.”

“And we could use some of that now.” Foggy finished.

“Yeah,” Luke answered with a grin. He glanced back down at Matt huddled against Foggy, “I can carry him out, if you think it’s good.”

Foggy had to take a second to consider that. He honestly didn’t think Matt was going to walk unassisted, so that was out straight off the bat. Even if he was strong enough – debatable – he wasn’t oriented enough for it. If they woke him up and Foggy helped him, maybe. Foggy still didn’t really think Matt was up for it. A little less than an hour of sleep because he had Foggy’s heart to focus on wasn’t going to solve all the problems that his overcharged senses were causing. Foggy hoped that knowing he was there was going to help Matt stay as in control as he could, or at least calm the screaming and fighting, but he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.

So he didn’t really think Matt was going to walk with or without help. That left carrying him and even though Matt was the skinniest Foggy had ever known him to be, he still didn’t want to risk trying to carry Matt himself and then dropping him if Matt got freaked out and fought him. His body was too injured for that.

So Luke could do it and he could take a punch if Matt started fighting.

The only real question was if he should wake Matt up to warn him or let Luke carry him while he slept and hope he stayed that way.

Foggy sighed, “I think that’s the only way he’s getting out of here but I don’t know if I should wake him or not.”

“Waking him runs the risk of him fighting me anyway. If I can get him out here asleep he might get to stay unconscious for the car ride.” Luke pointed out.

Foggy agreed, “Okay, let’s try it then.”

“Should I try to do the heartbeat thing too?” Luke asked seriously.

Foggy was sort of touched. Luke had known him and Karen longer than Matt but here he, Danny and Jessica were, trying to help him as though they were old friends. That said, Foggy was pretty sure the soothing heartbeat trick was kind of him-specific. Matt wasn’t going to know Luke’s nearly as well, if at all. So he shook his head, “I don’t want him to realize it’s different. Just carry him however you think you’ll be less likely to drop him.”

Luke looked almost offended, “I won’t drop him.”

Foggy grinned at him to take the sting out of it. Luke gave him a playful kind of look that seemed to barely accept the apology as he shuffled forward as quietly as possible. Luckily Matt was already in carrying position so all Luke needed to do was wrap an arm around his back and under his knees. Foggy helped gently shift Matt so he leaned against Luke instead of him and Luke stood slowly. They both held their breath.

Matt didn’t wake up.

Luke and Foggy looked at each other and Foggy shrugged. No time like the present.

He walked as close to Luke as he could. Sure, Matt could normally sense his heartbeat from ridiculously far distances and could probably now find him even if he was out on Long Island or something but he didn’t want Matt to think that Foggy was leaving him.

He also wasn’t sure how long the sleep was going to hold and wanted to be ready for Matt waking up.

Only Claire was in the hall when they opened the door. Foggy had sort of hoped that Sister Cristina would be there too, so he could genuinely thank her. Yeah, he didn’t think they had done much right for Matt but that was only because Matt was pretty unique. She had obviously cared and she had taken the time to find Foggy, which was the most important thing. He was going to have to find her and thank her someday.

Claire looked relieved that Matt was asleep, “Was hoping that was why he stopped screaming,” She whispered. In her hands she held Luke’s boots. Luckily, Luke was one guy they didn’t need to worry about walking without soles through the streets of New York.

“Talked with Luke,” Foggy whispered back, “We all agree on the bone dust idea.”

She nodded silently and Foggy was grateful for everyone already getting with the program. And speaking of… “Everyone in the van?”

“Just us.” Claire answered, “Others already to his place.”

Their small crew made more sense. Luke could get Matt there and help restrain him if absolutely necessary, Claire for the medical side and Foggy to try and keep Matt sane.

They walked slowly. Foggy wasn’t sure what was going to happen when they got outside but it was the only way to get Matt home and Matt _really_ needed to go home.

Foggy was _so fucking grateful_ to be able to bring him there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support for the story! 
> 
> Feedback is love!
> 
> Next up: The reality of Matt's condition becomes more and more apparent to Foggy and the team.


	3. Chapter Three

* * *

**\-- Chapter Three --**

* * *

“All right, Mr. Medical Proxy, on a scale of ten to ten how on board are you with this nice dose of oxycodone?” Claire whispered to him with a grin so wide Foggy knew she was living out one of her dreams.

“That would be a ten, Nurse Temple.” Foggy answered with a grin.

He was laying in Matt’s bed, under the covers and totally unrepentant about it. There was no room for any no-homo bullshit left in Matt’s apartment. Not that no-homo had ever really been their style, of course.

Foggy watched Claire inject some sweet relief in Matt’s IV port and he really hoped it was going to work the way they were hoping. Considering Matt’s unwillingness to take painkillers and extreme unwillingness to give them the answers about his senses that they really wanted, it was kind of guesswork on their part. Mostly things that Claire and Foggy could piece together from the tiny little hints Matt had given them over time.

Matt was currently curled on his side, pressed against Foggy. The car ride over had been maybe the closest to torture that Foggy had ever been forced to watch. Matt hadn’t stayed asleep, _of course_. He had only made it halfway there before he went from fitfully sleeping to thrashing consciousness in thirty seconds flat. It had taken Foggy another quarter of the ride to even get Matt to seemingly remember that they were together again and then the rest of the ride being unable to get Matt to let go of the death grip on his own head and ears. Nothing he and Claire did, not mouthing the words, not trying to press Matt’s ear to his heart, not holding him down or giving him space, did anything to make a dent in his agony.

Getting him to his apartment hadn’t done anything magical either. He fought Luke every step. He wouldn’t lay easily in his own bed, silk sheets be damned. He tried to take a swing at Foggy when he tried to get close, as if he had forgotten who Foggy even was again. Claire hadn’t had a chance. It had been down to Luke and Jessica to try to get him in the bed and they had mostly succeeded until Matt’s brain shut him down again and left him panting and sprawled so his head hung off the bed.

It had been too much.

They just had to hope that he wasn’t going to be stuck completely overloaded for long. Between the drug and Foggy and his own surroundings, they were hoping it would be enough to soothe him.

Foggy was pretty sure results were going to be hella mixed.

**\---**

Foggy spent the next three hours messing around on his phone, texting the others as they came or went and playing games. Matt had stayed still the entire time, his ear pressed against Foggy’s heart and their legs tangled together in the bed. Sure, cuddling was a patented part of any Foggy Nelson friendship (and Jessica could deny it all she wanted, she loved it) but this was probably the most intimate cuddling he and Matt had ever done.

He kept his eye on Matt, watched him stare at nothing and occasionally blink. It was less like torture to watch in comparison to his screaming phases but it still really sucked.

Wherever Matt was Foggy hoped it was really quiet and restful.

He turned his attention back to his phone, where he was looking up some suggestions for really bland recipes that Matt might be up for. Matt’s relationship with food was already weird and Foggy couldn’t imagine it getting worse.

Except that it was totally going to be worse and Matt’s visible bones were proof.

“ _Foggy_ ,”

It was out of his control but his heartbeat jolted and Matt flinched. Foggy felt Matt start to shake, ever so slightly.

“Hi, Matty,” Foggy whispered as quietly as possible. “How do you feel?”

Matt’s mouth opened and Foggy watched his eyebrows furrow like he was confused. He stayed silent, letting Matt work his way through a response.

“What…” Matt’s eyes darted back and forth. ‘Seeing’ or sensing _what_ , Foggy couldn’t guess. His voice still sounded absolutely wrecked. “What…?”

“How do you feel, Matty?” Foggy asked again, patient. He could guide Matt through an hour of getting an answer and he still wouldn’t be annoyed. He was talking to a dead man, his heart said. He was living the desperate dream he had been comforting himself with all these weeks.

“What?” Matt asked again. Foggy started getting the sense Matt wasn’t answering him, he was trying to ask a question. “Did you?”

Had Matt noticed a difference and wanted to know what it was? Foggy sort of hoped that was it, because then they could start to figure out dosages and that kind of thing. Claire would want to talk to him but she had left for a shift that she couldn’t get anyone else to cover.

“Claire gave you some painkillers, to make you feel better and maybe to tone your senses down.” Foggy answered slowly. He tried to put space between the words, to give Matt a chance to put it all together at his own pace. “Does it help?”

Matt breathed deeply, “Don’t know,” Matt answered. “Less?”

“You want less next time or it makes things less?” Foggy asked.

Matt pressed himself somehow closer to Foggy. His ear was still glued to his chest right over his heart. His bruised fingers clenched in the blankets and he closed his eyes. “Makes,” He whispered and then his breathing started to even out.

Real sleep, this time.

Foggy started grinning so hard his face ached.

They were getting somewhere.

**\---**

“Are we sure you didn’t drug him into a coma?” Jessica whispered to Claire from the doorway to Matt’s room. Foggy noticed she wasn’t whispering as quietly as she had before. Either she thought Matt was too far under to be disturbed by a slight increase in volume or she wanted to wake him up to prove he wasn’t actually in a coma. It was always hard to tell with Jess.

“Pretty sure,” Claire answered good-naturedly. “I think this is just his body desperately trying to catch up on some rest.”

“He looks like he needs to desperately catch up on some breakfast too,” Jessica muttered.

Silently, Foggy agreed with her. Matt had been sleeping for nearly half a day. He hadn’t even stirred when Foggy had needed to get up to pee. Now, though, his legs were moving restlessly and his brow was beginning to furrow like he was waking up and he wasn’t pleased about it. He was on the tail end of a dose, so Foggy was hoping they might be in a sweet spot of not overloaded but not so drugged he couldn’t string a sentence together.

It was a lot to hope for, he realized.

“True,” Claire agreed out loud for the both of them, “We’ll try some toast when he comes to.” She caught Foggy’s eye and nodded quickly, “And yes, we found the most organic bread from the most reputable company that this city has to offer. The price almost made Luke cry.”

“I’ll pay him back,” Foggy offered quietly.

Claire shook her head like the mere idea was stupid, “If he eats even a slice it’ll be worth every dollar.”

Matt chose that moment to let out a soft noise that Foggy was choosing to label as a _oh my god how can I have slept so long yet still be so tired_ groan. It was probably something more born of pain than that but hey, a guy could dream.

Jessica and Claire tensed up, both of them immediately silent. Jessica took a few steps closer, her hands outstretched. It was clear that she was getting ready to put herself between any blows headed for Claire and Foggy if Matt immediately freaked out. Foggy was sort of touched.

“Hey, Matty,” Foggy whispered. “You with us?”

Matt’s eyes blinked open slowly. He bit his lip and whimpered, his whole face scrunching up as the sounds and smells of the city came back to him. Foggy dropped his phone in his lap and pressed his hand against Matt’s ear to add another barrier. Matt panted and didn’t seem to relax any but he also didn’t get worse.

“Yes,” Matt answered slowly, almost a full minute and a half after Foggy had asked the question.

Claire crept closer, around Jessica, so she could crouch down by the bed, “Hi, Matt. It’s Claire and Jessica. How do you feel?”

Matt sucked in a few shaky breaths through his nose, “Can’t think. Don’t know. A lot.”

“You feel a lot?” Claire pressed, undeterred. Foggy knew she’d lead him to the answers she needed with the patience of a saint. At least she was getting more coherent answers than he had before.

“Yeah,” Matt gasped and flinched. Foggy was seriously tempted to rent them a cabin in the middle of nowhere but even a city boy like him knew that forests could be noisy in their own way. Also, he didn’t have that kind of money.

Either way, Matt was stuck reacting to every noise as if it was happening right next to his ears.

Foggy realized Jessica was backing out of the room as quietly as she could. Where she was going, he wasn’t really sure. Apparently, now that they were fairly sure Matt wasn’t going to start thrashing, she didn’t feel the need to hover.

“Can you tell me how your head feels?” Claire asked gently.

Matt was silent for a long minute, “Throbbing,” He said, “Sore, tired,” He listed out. None of that was a surprise but it still hurt to hear.

Claire nodded, sympathy and concern dripping from her expression. Foggy imagine he looked the same way. “More or less now than before?”

There was a long pause. Matt didn’t answer and Claire and Foggy traded glances.

“Does it hurt more or less than before, Matt?” Claire asked again when it got obvious he had somehow forgotten she had asked a question. Hopefully someone two buildings over were having a really interesting conversation or something.

This time he answered her, “Less.”

That was a huge relief. The words _right track_ kept echoing in Foggy’s head.

“How does - ” Claire started.

“Don’t want it.” Matt protested out of nowhere, cutting Claire off.

Foggy exchanged a confused look with Claire. Was he was telling them he didn’t want more drugs? That was kind of non-negotiable. Foggy was stuck by the idea that Matt was answering a question someone in some other apartment had asked before he saw Jessica returning with a plate of toast.

“Try some, Matty.” Foggy coaxed. He held his hand out for the plate as Claire looked behind her in confusion. He saw her roll her eyes at Jessica. She had probably wanted more answers from him before they argued about food.

Foggy grabbed a slice and tried to rip it with one hand. Claire reached out to help and once he had his own little piece free she kept ripping up the rest of it. He pressed the bite against Matt’s lips and hoped he wasn’t going to outright refuse. He remembered Sister Cristina telling them that Matt normally ate when he was comatose and the thought of having to force feed Matt while he was out of it made his stomach turn. “Please, Matt, try some for me.”

Luckily, Matt opened his mouth and accepted the bite, probably because of how Foggy had asked. Whatever, he wasn’t above begging and guilting Matt if it got food in his mouth. Matt chewed slowly and Foggy knew he was probably being assaulted by the taste of the sunlight on the wheat in the field or whatever his senses told him about something as simple as bread. He was hoping the lack of chemicals was going to make this easier. Matt seemed like he was chewing for an excessive amount of time and Foggy got nervous, but then he swallowed and opened his mouth for another bite. _Success!_

Matt took in almost the whole thing through a steady mix of light cajoling from Foggy and Claire and pointed jokes from Jessica. Two bites from the end, Matt gagged like he was going to puke.

“Breathe through it, Matt,” Claire encouraged. She immediately pulled the plate away and set it on the ground, “Try to keep it down.”

Foggy knew his heart had probably started pounding under Matt’s ear. One slice of bread had taken Matt nearly fifteen minutes and the mere thought of those calories and nutrients being wasted at the last minute as too cruel to consider. “Shh, Matty, it’s okay,” He encouraged.

Matt took a few deep breaths and didn’t gag again.

Foggy tried to focus on the positives: Matt was eating and he was vaguely conversing with them. He hadn’t screamed since the drugs kicked in. But the reality of the food situation filled him with a sour sort of worry. An IV line and one piece of bread in a full day wasn’t going to get Matt better.

“That was good,” Claire rubbed Matt’s arm. “Let’s see how it sits and we’ll try some more later.”

None of them, Matt included, looked very hopeful about the prospect.

**\---**

“One piece of bread?” Danny repeated, “That’s all? Not even buttered?”

The six of them – Claire, Luke, Jessica, Danny, Karen and Foggy – were sprawled around Matt’s living room. Foggy was tense by the door to Matt’s room, slid slightly open, so he could rush back if he needed to. He was only supposed to be away for a five minute shower but he had emerged from the bathroom to find them in the middle of a check in meeting that was apparently mandatory.

“It’s better than nothing,” Karen said with a positivity that felt slightly forced.

“Trust me,” Jessica said, “It felt like a goddamn feast by the time he finished.”

“It’s a start and it’s proof that he’s willing to try.” Claire corrected them, “I was concerned he would completely refuse.”

Luke let out a frustrated snort, “Thank God for hipster bread.”

Karen bit her lip next to Claire and Foggy was struck with the sudden guilt that he hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk to her about all of this. They had exchanged a few texts through the day but she seemed almost afraid to go near Matt. Possibly because the last time she had he had woken up and started screaming, so he didn’t blame her but he still felt bad.

“So,” She said once the bread conversation lulled, “I have an idea I think might help.” And turned her laptop around to show a page for putting up insulation on the screen.

“You think he’s cold?” Danny asked, confused.

Karen shook her head, “No, I think his old drafty windows probably let in a lot of sound. If we cover them with sheets of insulation material, we might be able to make things a little quieter for him. And, if we cover the wall to his bedroom a little, we might not have to whisper out here.”

“That’s actually a good idea.” Foggy said. “At least the closest we’re going to get to soundproofing without having to hire someone, which is obviously out for a lot of reasons.”

Jessica leaned closer to Karen’s laptop to peer at the screen, “Doesn’t look too hard.”

Karen seemed relieved the others were open to the idea. Covering Matt’s windows would take a lot of time. “I know Foggy’s out because he has to stay by Matt, and Claire has a shift soon, but maybe the four of us could try to get some done tomorrow?”

“Why not tonight?” Danny asked, all naïve enthusiasm.

Luke rolled his eyes, “It’s nearly midnight, how many construction supply stores do you think are open right now?”

Danny wilted a little, “Oh, right.”

“Great,” Foggy said as he glanced over his shoulder. Matt wasn’t moving but who knew how long it would last, “So that’s the plan for the next stretch. Luke, Karen, Danny and Jessica will work on turning this place into even more of a dark cave and Claire and I are on food and showering duty when he wakes up. Anything else?”

The rest of them shook their heads, so Foggy mentally called the meeting to a close.

**\---**

Foggy watched Claire as she changed a bandage on Matt’s knee. He was full of bruises and angry looking wounds that seemed to come from throwing a limb against a wall or something.

“How much of this do you think is from that night?” Foggy asked. Claire needed Matt on his back, not curled on his side with his ear glued to Foggy’s heart, so Foggy was taking the opportunity to stretch his legs. He was not by nature a man who longed for physical activity, but he had been in bed for going on twenty-four hours. Sure he had gotten up for a few bathroom breaks here and there but he was probably only up to 200 steps for an entire day and that was low even by his standards.

Claire finished taping the bandage and sighed. She dropped her gloved hands down onto her lap and glanced up and down Matt’s body. “Honestly? Not much. I seriously wonder what injuries he had before Elektra gave him that stuff and what injuries he came to the nuns with.”

“Probably better not to know,” Foggy said seriously. Even before they had found Matt, Foggy had nightmares about the last minute of Matt’s life when he was being crushed and burned under the explosion. He imagined Matt crying out from the pain of every bone in his body being shattered or him being trapped as fire closed in. Horrible things. Things that might have actually happened. Who knew what Elektra had managed to heal?

“Maybe,” Claire tilted her head as she thought it over, “But I would still rather know more about that stuff or the bone dust or whatever she did. I can’t even begin to guess how long this is going to last because we don’t _know_ anything.”

The only solace Foggy had was that the substance wasn’t a permanent thing. The Hand had needed to re-up every once in a while, which meant that Matt would too if he wanted to keep his hellishly strong senses. Not to mention the imperfect way that Elektra had gone about it. Matt hadn’t been dead and she didn’t perform whatever ritual went into it. Foggy wasn’t completely sure about that last point but considering the circumstances he was pretty sure she hadn’t had the time.

“Let’s say,” Foggy said slowly, nervous and a little sick from it, “That it lasts a while. And let’s say we can’t get him to eat that much during it. How long can he keep going like this?”

Claire looked up at him, “Not long but there are other options, Foggy.”

Options like feeding tubes. How agonizing would the sensation of a tube down his nose be for Matt? Would he hear it rubbing against his insides? Would he even let them? “We’d have to drug him more for that.”

Claire sighed, “I mean, medically induced comas are an option but it’s dangerous ground to play with. Especially at home. That goes beyond what I’m capable of.”

The thought settled heavy between them, eating up their ability to continue talking. Foggy listened to Matt’s steady breathing and the muffled sounds from the living room. To his regular person ear, Karen’s insulation was doing wonders. They had sealed up Matt’s bedroom windows first, putting a double layer over them to keep as much sound out as possible. Then they had started up covering the side of Matt’ wall that the door didn’t slide against, putting up a full layer as best they could. The stupid construction of Matt’s weird apartment didn’t leave them many options but they were doing their best. Based off what he could hear, he thought they were working on the living room windows. Considering the few lights Matt had in the place, they were about to be in dire need of some lamps.

“So we keep trying to get him to eat,” Foggy said finally. The rest of it was last resorts, barely feasible.

Claire made a noise of agreement kind of absently as she trailed her hand down Matt’s shin, “I think his leg was broken, like really badly. I’m worried it’s going to be a problem.”

Foggy sucked in an anxious breath and walked over to her side. Matt’s shin looked scarred and Foggy was fairly confident it was new. He had actually noticed that Matt didn’t have many new scars and he had assumed that “the Substance” had taken care of them. That this scar was still there though, that was probably an indication that there had been a major injury. The red, shiny tissue ran horizontally across Matt’s leg and when Foggy gently traced it with his finger, he realized it went all the way around. “Is it twisted wrong or something?

“No, it doesn’t seem to be.” Claire said, “But there’s still swelling, even after a month. And the scar, of course,” She said, giving Foggy’s scar assumptions some weight. Claire probably knew Matt’s scars better than even Matt himself did. If _she_ thought there weren’t many more, then it was probably right.

“It goes all the way around,” Foggy said slowly, “What do you think that means?”

Claire pulled her hand up to cover her mouth a little. Not in a sobbing way but in a way that suggested that her thoughts were going in the same direction as Foggy’s and she was just as horrified.

_Don’t think too hard about it_ , Foggy told himself firmly, “When he’s well enough to walk we’ll be careful of it.”

“What’s… wrong?” Matt asked, startling Foggy.

He looked up from Matt’s leg and Claire’s horror to find Matt’s eyes half open and aimed somewhere just to the left of Claire. From this angle, getting to look up the length of Matt’s underwear clad body, Foggy was struck again by how sick he looked.

“Nothing, buddy,” Foggy answered. Lied, really. “Claire’s just cleaning up your knee. It looks like it hurts.”

Matt made a quiet little humming noise, like he agreed.

“What do you say to a shower, Matty?” Foggy asked. He had a chair set up in there already, in the hopes that the two of them could hobble over there when Matt woke up. If Matt wasn’t up to walking, Luke was probably still good for carrying.

Matt’s attention, though, didn’t seem to be focused on Foggy or the prospects of better hygiene (and Matt was almost always focused on the prospects of better hygiene, so it was out of character to say the least). He turned his head away from them to face the insulated walls.

“Karen had an idea to put up some padding over the windows and walls to help block noise.” Foggy explained. He moved up the bed to sit at Matt’s side. “Okay?” When he didn’t get an answer, Foggy pressed a hand to Matt’s forehead, “Matt?”

He startled almost violently under Foggy’s hand and drew in a sharp breath that set off a cough so ragged Foggy knew his throat was still wrecked from all his screaming.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Foggy apologized a little frantically. He rubbed Matt’s shoulder and watched with a thundering heart as Matt tried to catch his breath. Luckily, he got his breathing back under control at a decent pace.

“Foggy?” Matt mumbled, like they were starting the conversation all over again.

It was hard not letting that bother him, Matt being so out of it, but at the end of the day they weren’t even a week into Matt’s recovery and Foggy didn’t want to ask for too much too fast. Breathing and eating were his priorities.

And maybe the showering, “You want to take a shower, buddy?”

“Yes,” Matt answered, “The water…” And then he trailed off, his focus obviously elsewhere. He tried again, “The water is…”

“Good?” Foggy guessed. He wasn’t really sure where Matt was going with it.

Matt shook his head, “Loud.”

_Oh,_ Foggy thought, _that made sense._ Well, sign them the fuck up for some more showers. He’d haul in and fill a goddamned kiddie pool if that got them some results. “Great!” He enthused, “Let’s try sitting up.” He slid his hands under Matt’s shoulders and waited until Matt moved his arms enough to get his elbows propped under him. If the bruised one that Claire had uncovered at the church hurt him especially, he didn’t show it. That might be down the painkillers, though.

Slowly, Foggy pulled Matt up as he weakly worked on pushing himself forward. Once he was sitting up, he leaned onto Foggy’s shoulder and made a soft moaning noise.

“Matty? What’s wrong?” Foggy asked, concerned.

Claire, who had been sitting and silently studying them while they talked, stood up and walked around to Matt’s back so she could get a closer look, “Matt, are you dizzy?”

He didn’t answer but his hand reached out to clutch at Foggy’s shirt like it was the only thing keeping him in place.

“Some food will help, Matt. Let’s try some more bread… or maybe some apple sauce?” Claire offered. Her voice was bright and easy but the expression on her face was less so. It matched Foggy’s and since Matt couldn’t see them, it was okay.

Matt took a few deep, shaky breaths. He didn’t answer.

“Let’s try both,” Claire decided after a few beats of silence. “I’ll be right back.”

She slid open the door to Matt’s bedroom and the slight uptick in noise made Matt groan again. “Foggy,”

“Shh, Matty,” Foggy rubbed his back gently and tried to ignore the way he could count Matt’s vertebrae if he wanted to. “Everyone gets dizzy if they haven’t eaten in a while. We’ll try some more food and once you feel settled we’ll go chill in the shower.”

They stayed silent for another minute before Matt jumped in his arms, tense and shaking.

“Shh, shh, hey it’s okay. Focus on my heartbeat, Matt.” The pain meds were clearly starting to lose their potency but Matt wouldn’t be allowed more for at least another hour. That was always the shittiest hour too, because there was virtually nothing that they could do to help him.

Claire came back in the room, a plate of toast and a bowl of something lightly steaming in her hands. She slid the door shut but the buffer didn’t seem to help Matt any. “I changed my mind, I thought we’d try some broth, so we could dip the bread and make it easy.”

If Matt had any feelings on that, or any disappointment about the lack of applesauce, he didn’t say. He also didn’t pull back from his desperate burrow in Foggy’s shoulder, which left him to be the bad guy. “Come on, Matt, turn your head a little.

With obvious reluctance, Matt did as he was told. What little he could see of Matt’s face was pinched and pale. Claire dipped a piece of bread in the warm broth and held it out to Matt’s lips.

It seemed to take Matt a long while to figure out that there was something being pressed to his bottom lip. He made a strange, confused sort of noise but he finally opened his mouth and let Claire put the bread inside.

“How’s that, Matt?” Claire asked once Matt had chewed and swallowed, all thankfully without gagging.

Matt made another non-committal noise. He wasn’t usually the most chatty guy around but this new barely verbal thing they were working with was worrying.

Claire offered up another bite that Matt was quicker to accept. He made no move to reach out and start feeding himself, and Foggy wasn’t sure if it was because he couldn’t work out where everything was in relation to himself or because it wasn’t occurring to him to try. He wasn’t sure what he wanted the answer to be.

The next few bites went quicker than the first slice of bread they had given him. Maybe the soup helped? Less work chewing, less texture to deal with? Foggy wasn’t sure but he’d take what they could get.

“Karen can make more, Matt, if you want.” Claire offered hopefully as they got to the last bite.

Matt didn’t shake his head so much as push it back into Foggy’s shoulder, “Water.” He said.

“Okay, buddy, shower time.” Foggy promised. He flipped the covers back and Claire swung Matt’s legs off the bed when he didn’t make any move to do it himself. “We’re going to stand at the count of three, ready?”

Matt grunted and Foggy took that as yes. He counted down slowly, hopefully giving Matt a chance to prepare himself. At one, there was a slight delay on Matt’s end but as Claire and Foggy pulled him up he eventually got with the program and braced his legs in enough time to actually stand upright. Foggy watched him carefully for any sign that he was going to pass out but he seemed okay. Or as okay as Matt was going to get anytime soon. They shuffled forward and with Foggy and Claire supporting him it was hard to tell if Matt was favoring his scarred leg.

The three of them made slow but steady progress to Matt’s bathroom, where Foggy had a lawn chair and some swim trunks waiting. Claire started running the shower while Foggy helped Matt change into his modesty trunks. Not that he hadn’t seen Matt naked before, roommates and all that, but it seemed only polite.

“Do you want help?” Claire murmured to Foggy once she got the shower warmed up.

Matt was leaning against Foggy heavily, “Maybe help me sit him down?” Foggy asked. The last thing they needed was Matt losing his footing on the slick porcelain.

Claire nodded gamely and took her place back at Matt’s side.

“We’re going towards the water, Matty,” Foggy directed. He nudged Matt forward, hoping that Matt would realize the direction on his own. Matt stayed still for a minute before he started to turn to the shower stall. Foggy bit his lip, happy beyond words. Little victories.

Claire and Foggy got Matt settled on the chair, “Call me if you need me.” She said before she stepped back.

**\---**

Fifteen minutes later had Matt freshly cleaned and lounging in a chair in his shower with Foggy sitting half-soaked on a stool just outside the stall. It was a weird scene to be in for sure but Matt was as close to relaxed as Foggy had seen thus far so it was worth the surreal vibe.

Foggy was kind of hesitant to speak and ruin Matt’s chance at quiet but he also wanted to see if having the distractions lessened meant that Matt was more himself.

The hope of that was kind of bursting out of his chest so he gave Matt another couple of minutes to chill before he said softly, but not at the near silent tone he had been speaking at before, “How do you feel, Matty?”

Foggy counted it as a win when Matt didn’t flinch. He only sighed a little bit but he didn’t sound annoyed. “Okay.” He answered. Was it Foggy’s imagination or had that answer come quicker than Matt had been giving them thus far?

“The water helping?” Foggy pressed because he was a desperate asshole.

Matt hung his head a little further over the backrest of his chair. “Always does.”

“Any other tricks you want to share while we’re talking about it?” Foggy asked.

His answer was a slow blink that seemed more sleepy than anything else. Foggy put a hand under the spray to check the temperature. They were really pressing their luck with the hot water. It was a little cooler, so Foggy turned it up just a little.

Matt still hadn’t answered and Foggy had to bite his lip to hold himself back.

Apparently the near nothing sound of his own teeth against his lip was loud enough to catch Matt’s attention. He angled his head back up and looked vaguely in Foggy’s direction. “Okay?”

Foggy snorted and immediately regretted it when Matt flinched, “Sorry,” He said, back to his bare mouthing, “I didn’t mean to do that, buddy. You realize that I am the way more okay one in all of this, right?”

The speech got a blank stare in answer. He’d spoken too fast, it was obvious. The water thing was clearly not the cure-all that he had been hoping for.

“I’m okay.” Matt said slowly, after a long beat of silence.

“You’re not, Matt, but you will be.” Foggy said gently, “These jacked up senses aren’t going to last forever, we think.” _We hope_.

Matt made a humming noise that didn’t really give Foggy any indication what he thought about that. “You’re okay?” He asked again, like the confirmation was his main concern. All of Foggy’s extra words weren’t what he cared about, obviously.

It made something in his throat tighten up. Matt was always so worried about everyone else. He was being assaulted by the world around him every second but he was putting his extremely strained focus into making sure that Foggy was okay. Not in answering Foggy’s question about how they could make him feel better, but in how Foggy was doing.

Foggy leaned forward and gently squeezed Matt’s wrist, “I’m so, so good, Matty. I’m so happy.”

The door opened slowly and Claire’s head poked in, “I’ve got his next dose.”

“Ooh, happy pill time, Matt.” Foggy said. He held his hands out and got three apple slices without the skin and some pills dropped into them. The door closed as silently as possible.

Foggy turned back to Matt to find his nose turned up. Apparently someone wasn’t into apples. “You can’t keep taking this stuff on an empty stomach, man.”

“Bread.” Matt pointed out. Or at least Foggy thought that was what he meant. He didn’t get the sense that Matt was asking for it instead, he was pretty sure that Matt was just being a brat about it. The show of some patented Matt Murdock Petulance was pretty nice, though.

“Not enough and you know it.” Foggy countered. He held an apple slice under the water and poked Matt’s lip, “Eat it, Matt.”

Matt grudgingly opened his mouth and took a bite. Half an apple slice in one go was a reasonable person’s way of eating it. Matt’s bite was about a fifth of the piece, which was ridiculous. Who nibbled on a single slice of apple? Matt’s face screwed up instantly and he didn’t even start chewing. He looked like the apple was too sour? Foggy took his own bite and didn’t taste much tanginess at all. Mostly it tasted sweet. “Try, Matty. Chew it up and it won’t be so sour.”

Matt pulled in a deep, shaky breath and shook his head. He leaned over the arm of the chair and spit the apple out, gagging as he did it.

“Whoa, okay, okay,” Foggy lunged forward and gripped Matt’s shoulder. “No apples,” He panicked, thinking about the slice of bread dipped in broth from before. He wasn’t going to let that go to waste. Matt gagged again, though, and Foggy instantly realized he had the hand full of apples and pills right next to his face. Hell, in the same apartment might be too much. “Fuck, sorry, I’ll get rid of it. Breathe through it, Matty.”

Foggy stood up, ripped the door open and startled Claire, who was changing the sheets on Matt’s bed and hissed, “Get rid of these,” He dropped the apple slices on the ground and shut the door before she could say anything.

As he turned back to Matt, he heard the telltale sound of vomiting and he got to face Matt just in time to see him hanging over the chair and puking onto the tile. Instantly, Foggy’s eyes burned and his chest got tight. Not because of the sight or the smell, but with the overwhelming need to just cry. One piece of bread soaked in broth was all Matt had eaten in hours and now he was puking it up because of one single nibble of apple that Foggy had forced on him.

Claire must have heard the puking too, because the door opened behind Foggy and she nudged his back to get him to move. “I’ve got this.” She whispered, like she knew Foggy couldn’t stay a second longer.

He felt like a coward but the only thing that Foggy could think to do was leave. He walked right out of the bathroom, out of Matt’s bedroom, past the others calling his name softly in the living room, right up the stairs and out onto the roof.

Foggy sobbed, helpless and terrified. He sat straight down onto the ground, legs crossed and pulled up so he could press his forehead to his knees.

This was worse. This fear now, this desperation that Matt stay with him was twenty thousand times worse than that moment in the police station when he realized that Matt wasn’t coming, that he was gone forever. That moment had been the worst ever in his life and yet it paled in comparison to how he felt now.

Now he knew what the pain of losing Matt felt like. He knew the agony of _what if_ and _why didn’t I try harder?_ He knew how he could torture himself. He knew how bitterly lonely he could feel. The thought of losing Matt again was indescribable.

If they couldn’t get him better… if he couldn’t keep anything down, couldn’t get him to eat enough in the first place… Foggy would lose him all over again and he didn’t know if he could survive it a second time.

He was so lost in his pain he didn’t hear the door open behind him. It wasn’t until a gentle hand pressed against his shoulder that he even realized someone had come to find him.

Foggy looked up and saw a blur colored like Karen kneeling in front of him. He didn’t care if she saw him cry, which was such a reversal of how they had operated in their mourning of Matt before that it occurred to him it might have been the first time she had really ever seen him cry.

“I helped Claire get him out of the shower. He’s in bed now,” Karen said. Her normal volume almost felt violently loud to Foggy, after hours and hours of whispering. “She told me he threw up.”

Foggy folded back in on himself, shuddering.

Karen sighed shakily and rubbed his arms. She wasn’t gentle about it, she pressed hard like she wanted to make sure he felt her. It was grounding, in a way.

“It was going to happen eventually, Foggy. We don’t know enough about how he tastes things.” Karen tried to reason with him.

All he could hear was his own voice encouraging Matt to eat the apple, to chew instead of spitting it out. What if he had told Matt to get rid of it in those first few seconds?

“I told him to eat it, he didn’t want it straight off. I told him to try for me and when he did and really looked like it was too much I told him to try again.” Foggy tried to explain. “One piece of bread – one fucking piece of wet bread in a day and he puked it up because I pushed too hard.”

“Oh Foggy,” Karen leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, “It’s not your fault.”

“Who’s fault is it then?” He asked angrily. “Matt’s?”

Karen shook her head against his shoulder, “Of course not,” She answered, “It’s no one’s fault besides Elektra’s and the Hand’s. It was an apple, Foggy, not poison. You were trying to help him.”

Foggy laughed bitterly, “Big help.”

“You are,” Karen pulled back to smile at him earnestly, “You’re keeping him sane. You’re helping him sleep. So the eating part is a trickier piece of the puzzle. We’ve only had him back not even three days.” She gripped his shoulders again and tried to make her smile look less shaky. It almost worked, like she believed what she said.

And maybe she did and maybe she was right. Maybe food would take longer and maybe they were still too early into Matt’s recovery to be spared mistakes but Karen was missing the fatal flaw.

“We don’t have trial and error time, Karen. He’s going to starve to death if we can’t get him to eat more.”Foggy’s voice started out heated but dissolved back into tears by the end.

Karen wrapped her arms around him again and he buried his head in her shoulder, blocking out everything around him. He wondered if this was how Matt felt sometimes. Alone and scared in blackness while someone else did the work to keep him tethered down to reality. The thought didn’t make him want to stay curled up with Karen, it made him want to go back downstairs to Matt.

Eventually, Foggy knew, everything he felt led to the need to go to Matt. How could he be a separate entity when they were so meant to be together? He had tried twice, once before Matt ‘died’ and once after. Both were the most miserable times in his life.

The door behind them opened again and determined but soft footsteps approached them. No hesitation, no shock at finding him crying. He appreciated it and knew instantly that it wasn’t Danny or Jessica. Those two were so completely useless and awkward with other people’s emotions it was almost sad.

Luke laid a strong hand on Foggy’s back, “Claire and Danny are helping him drink some soup. I cleaned up any trace of apple that we had. The knife, the plate Claire cut it up on, everything. He’s not gagging.”

Foggy tried to feel better about it, now that Matt was trying to replace the nutrients that he’d lost, but the looming fear wasn’t gone. It didn’t ease up. It felt like he was on the verge of a panic attack that wouldn’t actually happen. Like a stuck sneeze.

“See, Foggy?” Karen encouraged, “He’s trying. We’re going to have to work together to figure this out.”

“Claire asked me to head to her place and grab her uniform,” Luke said, “Come with me, we can stop and get some food on the way.”

He shook his head, “I should be with him.”

“He took his pills, he’s going to be out cold soon.” Luke countered. “Come on, man, you need some air and some greasy pizza.”

It honestly did sound good and any other day Foggy wouldn’t have hesitated. Being away from Matt felt like a sin, though. It felt like throwing the gift that he had been given back in the universe’s face. That wasn’t rational, he was fully aware, but it was how he honestly felt. How was he supposed to be okay walking away from Matt for more than 10 minutes to shower and change when all he had wanted was to have his best friend back?

“How many time did I listen to you preach to Matt about self-care, Foggy?” Karen’s voice went playfully stern. “Practice what you preach, set the example, go out and have a breather and eat something too stinky for the apartment.”

“It’ll be too stinky when I get back too.” Foggy threw out his other trump card. Karen’s reminder had set off a dozen memories of Foggy lecturing Matt about taking time for himself away from studying or, later, saving Hell’s Kitchen.

Worse, Matt could absolutely hear them from here and not only had he just listened to Foggy sob, he could also hear all of this. There was a very good chance that he was with it enough to register what was being said. Foggy didn’t want Matt to feel guilty for his freak out in any way, shape or form.

And, in a few months or however long it took for this to wear off and for Matt to get back to himself, Foggy did _not_ want to hear Matt throw this in his face. He preferred being untouchable in the self-care conversation.

Karen gave him a small smile, “There’s not loads we can do about that. Go to the place by our office that he likes and stick with plain cheese.”

Foggy sighed and nodded. Fine, he would go with Luke and take the time to gather himself back into an actual person. Hopefully, when he got back ( _in no more than an hour, he didn’t care what they thought_ ), he wouldn’t feel so shaky.

They were in this for the long haul. Hell, Foggy was in this _for life._ No point in running himself into the ground so early in the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos, I really appreciate it! I hope this update finds everyone well and alleviates the boredom for a bit!
> 
> Feedback is love :)


	4. Chapter Four

* * *

**\-- Chapter Four --**

* * *

When Foggy’s eyes blinked open, he wasn’t sure what time it was. One of the consequences of turning Matt’s apartment into a cave was that it made time move slowly. Was it morning or night? Had a hundred years gone by and Foggy had Rip Van Winkle’d it? Who knew? Not him, that was for sure.

He reached out for his phone and squinted at the harsh LED lighting.

It was morning, at least. He figured that he should at least try to keep them to regular human standards so they were attempting to schedule Matt’s care in a regular kind of way.

Yesterday had been a little rough, honestly. He had woken up still shaky from his freak out the day before and Matt had obviously noticed. Considering Matt used his limited focus to constantly check in on Foggy, it wasn’t any wonder that it had come up. Foggy had tried to downplay it but the dishonesty had just made them both sort of off.

Today was a new day though. A new chance to sort himself the fuck out.

Foggy shifted out from underneath Matt and waited a second to see if that would wake him. Unless he had missed something, Matt was still an hour out from the coherency sweet spot on his drug schedule, so now was absolutely the time to stretch his legs and take a shower.

As silently as possible, Foggy padded out of the room and into the bathroom. They were damned lucky that Matt didn’t really seem to have a problem with the sound of water, be it showers or rain. Not even at his current levels of super hearing.

He would have loved to stand under the shower spray and just veg for twenty minutes, but his legs were aching to actually walk around. He needed to ride that wave before it ran out, definitely.

Once he was finished in the bathroom, he walked back in to check on Matt. _Still out_ , _good._

He slid the door open to Matt’s living room as skinny as he could sneak out and then got it closed as soon as he could.

“You look like you’re trying to sneak out of a frat party gone wrong.” Jessica observed. “Or right, I guess.”

Foggy shot her a grin, “I’ve snuck out of frat parties, it was nothing like this.”

“Oh do tell, Foggy.” Karen laughed softly.

He went over to the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee, “Never, Page. A good boy doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Once Matt told me that you got so drunk at a college party that you puked on yourself and he had to give you his shirt and smuggle you out while he was half naked.” Karen said.

Of course Matt would decide to tell her something like that. Foggy walked over to the two of them and started making a slow circuit around the couch. If he sat down, his ass would weep.

“Like it was that traumatic for him. He and his exposed six pack did not suffer.” Foggy grumbled.

“Not that this isn’t fascinating,” Jessica drawled in a voice that said it was absolutely _not_ fascinating although the way her eyes crinkled with the tiniest of smiles said differently, “But what the fuck are you doing, Nelson?”

Foggy kept his steady circle around them, “I’ve been sitting for like fifty years, Jessica. That’s a lot for even me. If he’s sleeping, I’m walking.”

Jessica just snorted.

“How much longer do you think you can avoid being out of the office, Foggy?” Karen changed the subject to one a little more pressing. Yeah, Danny could float all their boats until, well, probably until they died. Still, Foggy didn’t want to ask that of him. So currently, Foggy was the one supporting him and Matt. He was honestly fine with that, except for that pesky office he was supposed to go to.

“I worked at my laptop a little yesterday. The hum bugged Matt for a bit but he settled back down.” Foggy reported, “Then the fan started up and apparently it’s a literal jet engine to him.”

Jessica wasn’t bothering to turn her head to track his movements, so he couldn’t read her face while she offered, “I can call Jeri. Tell her to back off.”

“She’s being surprisingly decent.” Foggy said a little shocked, “Probably the whole recently deceased wife thing but I told her I have a family emergency and she only threatened to fire me three times. From her, that was like concern and the license to take all the time I need.”

That got a snort from Jessica, “Yeah, she’s not broken up about her wife.”

Foggy wasn’t going to touch that. He didn’t want to know at all. “Either way, I should probably go down there tomorrow maybe? I don’t want to but someone has to keep the rent paid, you know?”

Three rents needed to be paid, actually - their old office, which Foggy hadn’t been able to say goodbye to, Matt’s apartment and Foggy’s. Although, he honestly was pretty sure he was letting that place go when his lease ended in a couple of months. Foggy had been sure he was going to renew it but it wasn’t very Matt-friendly and Foggy didn’t see himself managing to live in separate apartments anytime soon. Ever again, maybe.

It was probably too early to make declarations like that.

“Claire is supposed to be back in a few hours, I’ll ask her about the best timing for you being gone.” Karen offered.

Foggy finished the last swig of his coffee and doubled back to the kitchen to see what they had around. “Thanks, Karen. Tell her I’d ideally need to be gone like two and a half hours. Three would be great but I don’t know if that’s one, best for Matt or two, possible for me.”

Karen laughed softly. Although, why Foggy’s brain was noting the volume of it he wasn’t sure. Everything was done quietly. Everyone was whispering, all the time. Foggy was sure by the time he made it to the office where people spoke at regular volumes his ears were going to be bleeding.

Well, at least that would give him an idea of what Matt went through on the regular.

A quick glance at the microwave clock showed that Matt was about half an hour from the good point in his drug schedule. That was usually the best time for some eating and conversation, so Foggy started up some oatmeal. Bland as hell oatmeal, but still. Yesterday, Foggy had dipped the tip of his spoon in some jam and mixed it into the oatmeal and Matt had nearly keeled over from the overwhelming strawberry taste. He hadn’t gagged though. Hell, he’d even managed to eat half the bowl, which made Foggy feel more weepy than was probably healthy. So today Foggy was going to try it again and see if it still tasted as strongly of strawberries to Matt. Or really just saw if he reacted as intensely to it.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d start to see some progress on the senses side of things.

Or at least, Foggy was really, really hoping they would.

**\---**

Foggy wondered if Matt could hear the way he tensed his whole body whenever they brought him a new food. Or rather, an old familiar friend that they weren’t sure if Matt was going to vomit on or not. 

The analogy wasn’t great but whatever.

This time it was cheese. Matt had made his way through his oatmeal that morning with little fuss. He’d still reacted pretty dramatically to the strawberry explosion (.0001 of an ounce of strawberry jam dispersed in an entire bowl of oatmeal) but it had been definitely less. Now that wasn’t necessarily because his senses were easing back down, it might have just been because Matt was getting used to Foggy doing that, but it was still a huge win in Foggy’s eyes. He was riding that wave of success, which had given him the balls to bring cheese back into Matt’s life.

Matt, of course, was still more skeptical. He had a cube of mozzarella, one of the world’s blandest cheeses, and he was taking an itty bitty nibble out of a corner. Foggy was pretty sure that if he presented Matt with parmesan he’d pass out.

“That good, Matty?” Foggy asked a little anxiously. He tried not to _sound_ anxious, of course. That just tended to get Matt anxious in some sort of weird feedback loop kind of way.

“Hmm,” Matt hummed at him and then took another nibble so Foggy was choosing to interpret that as _yum, yay cheese._

“You want to go hang out in the shower after you eat?” Foggy said slowly.

For a second, Foggy wasn’t sure if he’d said that too fast. Matt didn’t react right away and it wasn’t like they’d managed to have any great conversations yet after all. Well, except that every conversation with Matt was a great conversation.

Before Foggy started to repeat himself, slower and with less words, Matt shook his head, “No, thank you.”

Foggy’s eyes almost bugged out. Three words? Two of which were totally unnecessary? “Okay, Matty,” Foggy said back with a big grin, “You got another idea?”

Matt took another little bite from his cheese cube and said, “You talk.”

That got a laugh out of him that was probably too loud. Matt didn’t flinch, though, so that was something. “You want to hear me ramble on and on?”

“Yes.” Matt answered firmly. And then he flinched, because someone two blocks over farted or something. “Yes.” He repeated again.

For a second, Foggy thought about telling Matt about some of his cases but those were boring. Then he thought about telling Matt an embellished version of the story of putting up his insulation, because that was pretty funny. That Danny was bad at home repair wasn’t surprising but _how_ bad kind of was.

Then, something else came into his head. He didn’t want there to be some big _No Trespass_ sign over their time apart. He didn’t want to have some big tearful conversation about it one day. There would probably be tears anytime Foggy was forced to talk about it, maybe Matt too, but he didn’t want the event to _be_ an event. He didn’t want to tiptoe around it.

Lack of communication and avoiding the hard stuff had nearly ruined them, once. Foggy wasn’t letting it get that far again.

So Foggy started telling Matt about how they found him. Specifically how genuinely bewildered he’d been by a nun showing up and asking to speak with him. A definite first.

Hopefully Matt would think it was funny. Or at least not blasphemous, especially considering Foggy’s brief thought about a nun smackdown. Not that he’d wanted to hit her or anything, just that one of The Defenders (the title the newspapers had dumped them with still tickled Foggy) had decided that maybe a nun smackdown was going to occur.

And that Foggy needed back up because the odds weren’t overwhelmingly in his favor, apparently.

He made sure to keep it light. No mentions about how close Foggy had been to crying even before the nun part happened, nothing about how they were meeting up to mourn Matt. That was a little heavy for their first _I thought you were dead_ conversation.

“I haven’t talked to Luke about it yet,” Foggy admitted to Matt. “I’m scared to.”

“Scared?” Matt asked. He had worked his way though his cheese cube and was halfway into another.

Foggy scoffed, “What if he tells me that he was genuinely worried I was about to lose a fight to a nun?”

And then, the heavens opened up and smiled upon Foggy. A choir of angels started singing. World peace was achieved.

Matt laughed.

Really and truly, Matt laughed.

_It was working_ , Foggy realized with a grin so big his face ached, _the drugs and the food and my heartbeat, they’re **working**_ **.**

And maybe later when the drugs started wearing off, they wouldn’t be in such a good place. Maybe Matt would puke again or cry or scream. Maybe Foggy would work himself back into a panic.

But Matt was getting better.

He was still _Matty_.

Foggy started laughing with him, physically unable to stop his happiness from bubbling over.

**\---Three Weeks Later---**

“Don’t do that.” Matt said without missing a beat.

Foggy froze in the admittedly odd position he had taken up behind Matt. Semi-couched, arms out, eyes glued to the slow walk that Matt was making from his bed to the couch. He’d done it twice before and hadn’t fallen but damn if Foggy was risking it happening.

“I’m okay.” Matt said like he did seven-hundred times a day.

They made the final two steps to the couch and Matt dropped into it like he had just run a marathon. Comparatively speaking, he sort of had.

“How’s your leg?” Foggy asked. They still hadn’t really talked about exactly what Matt remembered happening to it and Foggy was honestly fine with it. Those were potential images that he didn’t need stuck in his already too horrified brain.

Matt leaned against the back of the couch, stretching out and tipping his head back so he might as well have still been laying in bed. “Okay.” He answered, “Just aches.”

“Less than before?” Foggy pressed, “More? The same?”

“It’s better, Foggy. Everything is better.” Matt said and there was obvious relief in his voice. That alone convinced Foggy of his sincerity, although it was plain to see that Matt wasn’t lying in any major way. He was better. It was still slow going but they were really getting there.

The bone dust or whatever had finally started weakening over the last five or six days. Matt was still way more sensitive than he usually was and what he was dealing with would probably send Foggy into a coma if they did some sort of weird body swap, but the drugs that they were starting to wean him off of where keeping things from getting too unbearable. In comparison to how they’d found him, it was light-years better.

Matt’s wounds were mostly healed and he was looking slightly less skeletal now that eating was possible again. Really possible. Hell, Matt even _asked_ for food sometimes now.

Miracle of miracles.

“Stop hovering.” Matt didn’t bother tilting his face back or leaving his sprawl.

Foggy rolled his eyes and dropped down onto the coffee table opposite him. “I’m not hovering.”

This time, Matt brought his head down just so he could raise his eyebrow at Foggy. And yeah, maybe that was kind of a big lie. “What does my heart say?”

“Liar liar pants on fire.” Matt quirked a weird little smile and Foggy knew it was because he still wasn’t entirely sure what Foggy was cool with in terms of his senses. He hadn’t yet realized that Foggy was cool with all of it now because it was a package deal with Matt and he wasn’t letting him go ever again.

Someday, he’d get it. Foggy was content to wait until then.

“Is that like the rhythm my heart is going?” Foggy tapped it out against his leg. Two separate pats for _liar liar_ and then three close together for _pants on fire_. He chanted it in time with his new heartbeat rhythm. 

Matt laughed and Foggy watched as the weird smile morphed into something so wide it made the corner of his eyes crinkle. “No, thank God. I’d have to call an ambulance if your heart started doing that.”

“So you’ve never encountered anyone who had like _We Will Rock You_ going in their chests or something?” Foggy asked, mostly joking. Ten percent was not a joke, though.

“How would a heart do the clapping part?” Matt asked sort of seriously.

Foggy shrugged, “You tell me, Mr. Cardiologist.”

Instead of laughing some more, Matt’s face slowly eased out from his grin. “You… you’re just talking about it.”

It took a second for Foggy to realize what Matt was driving at. Of course he was _just talking about it_ , he just talked about pretty much everything or hadn’t Matt met him before? Then, the reality caught up to him. Matt was thrown off that they were joking about _this_ , this thing that Foggy had hated and Matt had kept a secret. “Yeah, I’m talking about it. Fair warning, Matty, I’m going to talk about all of it, all the time.”

“All of it?”

“All of it,” Foggy repeated firmly. “We don’t need to get deep and meaningful if you don’t want to but the long and short of it was that your ‘death’ was hell and losing you before that was hell and I’m literally never doing either again. Suddenly, the stuff that made me so angry isn’t such a big deal anymore. Maybe we’ll need to talk out some of it for real someday but right now, I literally couldn’t care less about Nelson & Murdock imploding or you keeping your senses a secret. It’s old. It’s done. We’re moving forward and we’re doing it open _as fuck_. I’m going to talk your ear off, even more than usual if you can believe such a thing possible. And I’m going to bother you until you talk back. End of story. Matt and Foggy best friends forever.”

There was a long pause and Foggy tried to let Matt work through whatever his feelings were. God knew it wasn’t Matt’s strong point.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said finally.

Foggy shook his head, “You don’t have to be.”

Matt reached out a hand and wrapped his fingers around Foggy’s wrist, “Yes, I do.”

He twisted his hand around a little so they were holding hands, “I guess there’s one thing I do want to get weepy and deep about, if that’s okay.”

Matt tensed but he didn’t pull his hand away so Foggy squeezed it tighter. “Okay.”

“Matty, you don’t have to tell me about what happened down there with Elektra or what your thought process was when you sent the others away or… any of it, really.” Foggy said carefully. He still hated Elektra for a lot of different reasons but Matt didn’t hate her and someday she might end up back in their lives. He hoped not, he hoped that if she loved Matt enough to drag his broken body out from the bowels of New York that she also loved him enough to understand that she was literally the worst person for him in the world and stay away. His hopes weren’t high but then she wasn’t the young woman they’d met in college anymore either. She’d been through some serious shit.

Matt still held himself taut as Foggy spoke but there was something relieved in his face as Foggy gave him that permission. If Matt never wanted to talk about what had happened down there, Foggy could respect that.

“I’ll listen if that ever changes.” Foggy added, “Although that’s not what I was gearing up to say.”

Matt stayed silent, so Foggy plunged ahead.

“I just want you to know that if you thought everything you had was down there and that’s why you stayed, that you were wrong. I know we were on the outs and maybe you thought… maybe you thought staying with her was the better choice.” Foggy said quietly. The words sort of hurt. When the others had told him what had happened that night, that Matt chose to stay behind, what he’d said to Danny… that shit had been devastating.

“Foggy…” Matt bit his lip like he didn’t know what the right thing to say was.

Foggy squeezed his hand again, “Listen, like I said, you don’t have to explain. I just need you to understand that even if we’ve been fighting, even if we shouted horrible things at each other, no matter what’s happened, _I need you to come back to me_.” He said the words slowly, trying to infuse as much feeling and certainty into them as possible. “Do you understand me, Matty? I don’t care what you have to do, I don’t care about anything but you coming home to me. I’ll always be waiting. If you thought like ‘Well, I’ve made my peace with Foggy and we’re definitely done as friends so there’s no one up there who needs me so I’m just going to have a few tragically romantic moments with Elektra before we get crushed and call it a day.’ you were wrong. You were totally and completely wrong.”

Silence.

“I waited in that friends and family room of bullshit with Karen for hours, Matty. And then the Danny, Luke and Jessica came back and I waited and waited and you never came through the door and…” His voice broke.

Matt surged up and leaned into Foggy’s space, throwing himself half sideways so he could wrap his arms around Foggy’s shoulders. “ _I’m sorry.”_

Matt’s arms squeezing him tight didn’t help the impending tears problem but it felt damned good. Like home. Like something warm and good. “The idea of never seeing you again Matt, I thought it was going to drive me insane. Like, going another fifty years and none of them with your dorky smile or Marshall quotes or just showing up at my door when I needed you without me even asking, that felt like punishment.”

“It wasn’t.” Matt said fiercely, “I never meant to hurt you.”

And that, Foggy knew, was the truth. Matt was an emotionally stunted, awkward little duckling with a ridiculously tragic backstory and the self worth of an amoeba…

But he loved Foggy. He loved Foggy more than he loved himself.

His secrets had never been selfish, they’d never been designed to hurt Foggy. If anything, they had been a misguided attempt to protect him.

Someday that was going to come to a head. Foggy had no illusions about the future return of Daredevil. Matt was going to try to hide things from him again because protecting Foggy was his default and he was absolutely going to think he was doing the right thing. That was all Matt ever tried to do.

Foggy knew better now though. He knew what Matt’s mind was capable of justifying. He knew enough about Matt’s senses to figure out so much more than he’d ever had a prayer of comprehending before.

And, even more than that, he knew what losing Matt felt like. Both flavors too – estrangement and death.

He was never letting Matt put a wedge between them again. He was never letting his own hurt or pride or frustration get the better of him again. Full stop, end of story. He just wasn’t.

If protecting him was what made Matt keep secrets… If thinking that Foggy was better off if Matt was gone made him stop fighting…

“Losing you was the worst pain I’ve ever felt, Matty.” Foggy rubbed his cheek against Matt’s so he’d feel the wetness there. He knew Matt could taste the tears or hear them or spiritually sense them but he didn’t care. He wanted Matt to know they were there every way he could. “Please, _please_ , never let me feel it again. Don’t push me away. Don’t lie to me to protect me. Don’t let me lose you again.”

Matt pressed his face even closer to Foggy’s shoulder, digging in almost painfully. The pain felt good, though, it made Matt feel more real. “I’ll try. Foggy, I promise I’ll try.”

And from Matt, that was probably the best Foggy could hope for. If Matt had straight up said _Yes, I promise, I’ll never lie again and I’ll never put the mask back on and I’ll be the Matt you thought I was before you knew the truth,_ Foggy wouldn’t have believed him. He wouldn’t have been reassured at all because it wouldn’t have been real.

Matt promising to try meant that he knew the score and he _wanted_ to make that promise. That was better. It was pure.

There was still so much to figure out and to heal from, for both of them.

They had time, though.

All the time in the world.

**\---**

**\---**

**\---**

**\---Two Months Later---**

When one of the children ran to fetch her saying a man wanted to speak with her, Sister Cristina didn’t think anything of it. A father, most likely, come to discuss some little issue with his child. Between Sunday school and the after school program the church ran, she spent quite a lot of time discussing either a child’s progress or some little feud between the children that the parents decided to get involved with.

That was probably it, she decided. In fact, she was surprised that Mr. Afton had taken so long to discuss the latest round in the battle between his son and another boy in the program. If those two went longer than two days without some squabble then she would think a miracle was occurring right before her eyes.

Mr. Afton usually met her in the small office dedicated to the program but little Jasmine said that the man was waiting for her in one of the pews. Not regular at all but she didn’t think much of it after Jasmine confirmed twice that she was sure that was where he was.

As she came down the aisle, she found a dark haired man sitting in the first row, otherwise alone. Considering Mr. Afton’s red hair, she knew instantly it wasn’t him.

Who else had come looking for her, then?

“Hello?” She called softly, not wishing to interrupt loudly if he was in the middle of prayer and Jasmine was wrong after all. “I am Sister Cristina, I was told you were looking for me?”

“I remember your voice.” The man said, equally as hushed.

Her steps faltered after that confusing statement. He remembered her voice from _where?_ What a strange thing to say.

“I’m afraid I don’t…” She started but he started speaking again.

“Everything was too much and everything hurt and with the world coming at me so frantically, I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t understand. I don’t think I’ve ever been so lost before in my life.” He said as he slowly stood.

Her breath caught as he turned to face her.

“But you kept talking to me, promising that you would find who I belonged to.” He gave her a smile that seemed to change his whole face. It made him seem lighter in a way that was almost more startling than anything else. More than the healthy flush of his skin or the way his face had filled back out. More even than the sanity she had feared was lost.

“Matthew Murdock.” She pressed her hands to her mouth, suddenly about to cry. “I had hoped… Oh, I’m so happy to see you!”

His smile went wider still. “You found Foggy for me and I can’t thank you enough. If there’s anything I can do to…”

Sister Cristina couldn’t help herself. She reached out for him and wrapped her hands in his when he reached back for her. How he knew that she was coming when his eyes were the only thing that hadn’t changed from his condition before, she didn’t know and she didn’t care. “Seeing you like this… this is all the thanks I will ever need. I am so happy.” She repeated.

“I’m a lawyer,” Matthew said and he let one of her hands go so he could pull a card from his pocket. _Nelson & Murdock _was written in bold type on the back of it and when she accepted it and turned it around, it listed his name and his contact information. “If you ever need help. If anyone here ever needs help, please call me. I’ll do anything I can to make whatever it is right. Even if you don’t want to call it repayment, please still call me.”

She probably would, if for no other reason than to make sure he was still all right. There were some days where it felt like everything she was trying to do to help humanity wasn’t enough, that she wasn’t truly making a difference.

Seeing him though, seeing this young man that had been given to them broken and tortured, that the others had almost given up on…

Seeing him whole again. Happy, smiling, productive…

This victory standing before her was _everything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support for this story! I hope you enjoyed it and that you and your family are safe in this crazy time. 
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts! Feedback feeds my soul :)


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